









> i r.v^ •'** ' « 




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RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 








Dr. JOHN BROWN 

After the painting by Sir John Reid , R. S. A. 


Golden Classics 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


BY 

DR. JOHN BROWN 


WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


CHICAGO NEW YORK 

RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright, 1902, 
Copyright , 1909, 

By Rand McNally & Co. 




7. \ 



Chicago 


©CLA8637GG 



The acknowledged classics of English literature 
are many, and the number of those works which are 
worthy of being ranked among the classics grows 
from year to year. Whosoever would know the best 
that has been written in our tongue, can scarcely 
begin his acquaintance too soon in his own life after 
he has learned to read. Nor can he be too careful 
about the new members he admits to the circle of his 
book friendships. 

The gardener may have prepared his ground with 
scrupulous and rigid care, but unless he follows his 
planting with unremitting vigilance, the labor of 
preparation will have been in vain. A few days of 
neglect and the garden will be smothered in weeds. 
Profitable knowledge of the best in our literature 
must be sought with like vigilance and patience. The 
taste for it should be implanted early and when estab- 
lished must be cultivated and maintained with con- 
stancy. It should also be intelligently adapted to 
increasing years and widening experience. 

The first few books in the Golden Classics have 
been chosen as the foundation for a permanent and 
more extended series. They have been taken from 
the writings of acknowledged Masters of the English 
9 




IO 


INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES 


tongue. Among these immortals are Irving, Dickens, 
Ruskin, Longfellow, and Goldsmith; no names in 
English literature are more beloved and honored. 

More vital even than their great worth as litera- 
ture, these selections have, in eminent degree, that 
wonderful quality of the works of human genius 
which stimulates the imagination of the reader, 
refines his taste, broadens and deepens his love of 
letters, inspires him with generous sympathy for all 
that is uplifting, and quickens his aversion toward 
all that is trashy or in any way unworthy. 

It is true in literature as it is in money that the 
truest capacity to detect the counterfeit is intimate, 
familiar knowledge of the genuine. It is not enough 
merely to know that there are works in our literature 
which have proven their immortal, classic quality, 
but equally as important to be able to name some .or 
all of them. It is not enough even to be able to say 
that one has read them. They must be, so to speak, 
mentally absorbed. They must sink deep into and 
be assimilated by our intellectual life, and so become 
a part of our being. By just so much as any genera- 
tion accomplishes this, and makes itself affection- 
ately familiar with all that is possible of that litera- 
ture which has crystallized into immortality ; by 
just so much it has raised the plane on which the next 
generation must begin its career, and thus has con- 
tributed toward the uplifting evolution of humanity. 

These Golden Classics are meant to put the means 
of rising to this plane within easy reach; opening a 
path which every aspiring reader may follow in full 
confidence that he will not be led astray. 


DR. JOHN BROWN 


I N the writings of Doctor Brown we are intro- 
duced to a new and yet strangely familiar 
world, whose inhabitants are dogs of all sizes 
and colors, gentle dogs and fierce, dogs ugly and 
dogs beautiful, but all of whom speak the same 
language and serve the same master. There is 
the bristling, barking little terrier, who dearly 
loves a fight, and the beautiful 
and intelligent shepherd dog, 
who is never so happy as when 
guiding and protecting his 
helpless charge. There are all 
grades and ranks of society, 
from the cringing, low-born 
cur to the noble and aristo- 
cratic mastiff. There are hon- 
est and intelligent citizens, and 
robbers and pirates, who prey 
upon their virtuous and more 
fortunate neighbors. And each 
of these humble inhabitants of 
our earth has a character of his 
own, distinct and clearly marked, which distin- 
guishes him from all the rest of his race. 

This canine world, about which our author 
has written so entertainingly, exhibits many vir- 
tues, such as love, steadfastness, loyalty, honesty, 
faithfulness, and patience, while we find but few 



'■'•The bristling, bark- 
ing little terrier ” — A 
drawing by Dr. Brown 


I 2 


JOHN BROWN 


of the vices of the higher race. It has no drunk- 
ards, liars, cheats, or profane swearers, though 
there are many who love a good, honest fight, 
and there are some cowards. There is much for 
us to learn from such characters as Rab, Wylie, 
Duchie, and even the low-born and unrefined 
Toby. Certainly our literature is richer because 
these humble names have been added to it, and 
the animal life, with which we come into daily 
contact, must be more beautiful because their 
characters have been disclosed to us. 

The Columbus who discovered this new world 
was John Brown, a Scotchman, the greater part 
of whose life was spent in the quaint and beauti- 
ful old city of Edinburgh, where so many historic 
scenes have been enacted. He was born in 1810, 
and was the son of a minister, whose true and 
simple Christian life was always before him as 
a beautiful object-lesson, inspiring him to pure 
thoughts and noble deeds. His native place was 
Biggar, one of the gray, slaty -looking little towns 
of Southern Scotland. His mother died in his 
early childhood and shortly afterward his father 
gladly accepted a call to a prominent church in 
Edinburgh, which thus became their permanent 
home. His early education was obtained at the 
Edinburgh High School, which Sir Walter Scott, 
who was still alive, had attended. 

Of his schoolboy days his old friend Doctor 
Peddie says : 

“I do not think John ever engaged in the 
ordinary games and sports of boys, which in 
those days were football, shindy, hounds and 
hares, or the sham fights suggested by the class- 
ical readings of the Roman wars, or by the recent 
excitements connected with the Peninsular Cam- 
paign. Besides, I never heard of his playing a 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


13 


round of golf, which was a favorite game on the 
Bruntsfield links in those days before its sur- 
roundings became populous ; or firing a shot, or 
even angling, although brought up in a district 
so favorable for the pursuit of the ‘gentle art’ 
as were the beautiful upper reaches of the Clyde 
and Tweed, with their many lovely tributary 
streams and burns. Indeed, I remember him in 
later years saying, that on one occasion he ‘ tried 
to fish, and caught everything but fish ! ’ He was, 
however, like his father, a bold and excellent 
horseman.” 

In the high school he proved himself to be an 
excellent scholar, especially in Greek, for which 
language he never lost his love. After leaving 
the high school he completed his classical and 
literary studies in the university and then turned 
his attention to the study of medicine, which he 
had early determined to make his profession. 
According to the custom in those days, he was 
apprenticed to a Mr. Syme, one of the rising 
young surgeons of Scotland, for whom he soon 
came to cherish a warm devotion, which he voiced 
as follows : 

“ Perhaps I was too near Mr. Syme to see and 
measure him accurately, but he remains in my 
mind as one of the best and ablest and most 
beneficent of men. He was my master ; my ap- 
prentice fee brought him his first carriage — a 
gig — a nd I got the first ride in it, and he was 
my friend. He was, I believe, the greatest sur- 
geon Scotland ever produced.” 

Shortly afterward Mr. Syme founded the Minto 
House Surgical Hospital, in which young Brown 
became his valued assistant. His friend, Doctor 
Peddie, says of him at this time : 

“ He was also notably popular with the fellow- 


14 


JOHN BROWN 


apprentices, nurses, and patients, whose regard 
and admiration arose from his general intelli- 
gence, insight of character, relish for anything 
humorous, his quaint remarks, ready anecdotes, 
gentle manners, and the possession of that singu- 
larly sweet and sympathetic countenance which 
he retained to the end of his days.” 

It was here that the pathetic incident occurred 
of which the grand old dog Rab was the hero, and 
of which he says in the preface of his collected 
works : 

“ I have to apologize for bringing in ‘ Rab and 
His Friends.’ I did so, remembering well the 
good I got then, as a man and as a doctor. It let 
me see down into the depths of our common 
nature, and feel the strong and gentle touch that 
we all need, and never forget, which makes the 
world kin.” 

The following anecdote, which shows his good- 
ness of heart and self-sacrificing devotion to duty, 
is told of him during an epidemic of cholera, 
which raged with great virulence : 

“Early one morning John was called to a 
village three miles down the river to a place 
where the disease had broken out with great fury. 
On nearing the place of landing he saw a crowd 
of men and women awaiting his arrival. They 
were all shouting for him, the shrill cries of the 
women and the deep voices of the men coming to 
him over the water. As the boat drew near the 
shore an elderly but powerful man forced his way 
through the crowd, plunged into the sea, and 
seized John Brown and carried him ashore. Then 
grasping him with the left hand, and thrusting 
aside with the right all that opposed his progress, 
he hurried him with an irresistible force to a cot- 
tage near. It was 4 Big Joe,’ in his determination 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


I 5 


that the doctor’s first patient should be his grand- 
son, ‘ Little Joe,’ convulsed with cholera. The 
boy got better, but ‘Big Joe’ died that night. 
The disease was on him when he carried the 
doctor from the boat; and when his wonderful 
love for the child, supreme over all else, had ful- 
filled its purpose, he collapsed and died.” 

At the completion of his medical course he 
settled down in his old home and pursued the 
arduous calling of a family physician until his 
death in 1882. He soon became the best loved 
and most popular physician in the city, and his 
business increased until it taxed his strength to 
the uttermost, yet he always found time to min- 
ister to the needs of his poorest and humblest 
patients and to enjoy the companionship of his 
other friends, the dogs and cats of the neigh- 
borhood. 

He was a man of rare gentleness and sweet- 
ness of disposition, whose warm sympathies, 
genial manners, and unselfish interest in the wel- 
fare of others won for him the love and esteem 
of all who knew him. Every side of his char- 
acter was admirable. He was a Christian gentle- 
man, living a life as pure and sweet as the waters 
of the highland lochs of his native land ; a public- 
spirited citizen, actively interested in all that 
concerned the welfare of the beautiful city in 
which his lot was cast; and the good physician, 
whose presence never failed to comfort and con- 
sole, even though his skill could not always bring 
healing or relief from pain. In addition to all 
this he was one of those rare men whose love and 
sympathy extended not only to his fellows, but 
also to the dumb animals which crossed his path- 
way from day to day. His interest in them was 
so genuine that they always recognized it and 


i6 


JOHN BROWN 


came to him with perfect confidence, however 
timid they might be in the presence of others. 
There was hardly a cat or dog in town which he 
did not know by name, and with which he was 
not on terms of familiarity. 

“Once, when driving,” writes a friend, “he 
suddenly stopped in the midst of a sentence and 
looked eagerly at the back of the carriage. ‘ Is it 
some one you know?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it 
is a dog I don’t know.’ He often used to say he 
knew every dog in Edinburgh except a few new- 
comers, and to walk Princess Street with him was 
to realize that this was nearly a literal fact.” 

Another friend says of him : “ Dogs he loves 

with an enthusiasm to be found nowhere else in 
canine literature. He knows intimately all a cur 
means when he winks his eye or wags his tail, so 

that the whole bark- 
ing race — terrier, 
mastiff, spaniel, and 
the rest — 'finds in 
him an affection- 
ate and interested 
friend. His genial 
motto seems to run 
thus: ‘I cannot 
understand that 
morality which ex- 
cludes animals from 
human sympathy, or 
releases man from 
the debt and obli- 
gation he owes to 
them.’ ” 

He was never without at least one dog in the 
family, of which it was in the fullest sense a 
member, and his doors were always open for 


PtATGTHOOHeASO/V 
WELU 



6 


A grotesque drawn by Dr. Brown for 
one of his youthful admirers 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


i7 


hungry and forsaken animals to come and get 
the food and care of which they stood in need. 
No matter how maimed, forlorn, and disreputa- 
ble a dog might be, it never failed to find a nurse 
and a friend in the good doctor, who would min- 
ister to its necessities as gently and carefully as 
to those of any of his human patients. 

Doctor Brown was a man of such a sweet and 
beautiful character that it is worth while to hear 
what his friend Doctor Peddie has to say of him: 

“ Having attained a position so distinguished 
and honored, the most of men would have culti- 
vated the advantage gained and come more to the 
front as a public character. But Doctor Brown 
was too diffident and self-depreciating, and there- 
fore shrank from that kind of notoriety. He dis- 
liked all public appearances, and although his 
pen was swift in the expression of true genius, 
and while he was always so ready and interest- 
ing in conversation, he did not possess the gift of 
extemporaneous speaking, or at least shunned 
every occasion on which there was the possibility 
of being called upon to make a speech in public. 
Nothing perturbed him more than the apprehen- 
sion, even, of being expected to return thanks 
for the toast of his health at a public dinner. I 
remember one occasion on which he was forced 
to perform that duty, and all he was able to give 
utterance to was, ‘ Gentlemen, (a pause), I thank 
you kindly, (pause), for your kindness,’ and then 
sat down amid laughter and applause. 

“The most marked characteristics of Doctor 
Brown’s life and work were personality and 
spirituality. These are strikingly conspicuous in 
his various published writings, his private life 
and correspondence, and also in his social inter- 
course and relations. 


8 


JOHN BROWN 


“ His personality impressed all who knew him 
with a peculiar charm. His expressive counte- 
nance, as already noticed ; the keen gaze through 
or over his tortoise-shell spectacles; the persua- 
sive tones of his voice; his ready perception of 
peculiarities in persons and things ; his currents 
of thought, human sympathies, social affinities, 
easy style of humor, and quick insight and subtle 
analysis of character, were all highly individual- 
istic. In the thoroughfares of our city he seemed 
to know or to be known by almost everyone. 
When in good spirits he had a smile or nod for 
one, a passing quaint remark or joke for another, 
an amusing criticism on an article of dress or 
ornament displayed by a third, or to others 
readily and happily expressed words of recog- 
nition, congratulation, encouragement, or sym- 
pathy, as occasion and circumstances suggested. 
And in the case of curious passers-by among the 
dogs — for he had many such familiar friends — 
he had a pat on the head, or some commendation 
or criticism to bestow, and if they were strangers 
he manifested an interest in their ownership, 
breeding, intelligence, or comicality — especially 
of terriers, of whom he has spoken as ‘those 
affectionate, great-hearted little ruffians!’ For 
dogs in general he had a well-known love, and 
though bitten severely by a dog when a child, he 
has told us that he had ‘remained bitten ever 
since in the matter of dogs.’ In fact, be became 
quite an authority regarding the breeding of 
dogs, their points of excellence and value ; and 
as a good judge his opinion was often asked 
before a purchase was made; and not infre- 
quently also was he requested by intimate friends 
to secure for them a dog of the kind they were 
anxious to possess. 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


1 9 


“ He understood dogs well, and they seemed 
to understand him. He had a high appreciation 
of their intelligence. 

“Of Professor Veitch’s dog, ‘ Birnie,’ he wrote 
on one occasion thus : ‘ Don’t let Bob (a bull ter- 
rier) fall out with him. Birnie is too intellectual 
and gentlemanly righteous not to do everything 
consistent with his character to avoid a combat.’ 
Of our sagacious Dandie he used to say, ‘ he must 
have been a covenantor in a former state,’ and 
that he knew only one dog superior to him.” 

The loss of a dog is thus mourned by Doctor 
Brown : 

“23 Rutland St., May 18, 1857. 

My Dear C., — I have been told to-day that you 
have lost Wamba. I know too well what this is 
to think it anything less than a great sorrow. I 
would not like to tell anybody how much I have 
felt in like circumstances : the love of the dumb, 
unfailing, happy friend is so true, so to be 
depended on ; is so free of what taints much of 
human love, that the loss of it ought never to be 
made light of. Had he been unwell for some- 
time? He was not old enough to die of age. 
We have one such, and I do not know what I 

would do were he to die 

Ever yours, J. B.” 

The following passage taken from “Minch- 
moor ” further illustrates his absorbing interest in 
his humble friends : 

“We now descended into Yarrow and fore- 
gathered with a shepherd who was taking his 
lambs over to the great Melrose fair. He was a 
fine specimen of a border-herd — young, tall, saga- 
cious, self-contained, and free of speech and air. 
We got his heart by praising his dog Jed, a very 
fine collie, black and comely, gentle and keen. 


20 


JOHN BROWN 


Ay, she’s a bell yin, she can do a’ but speak.’ . . . 
On asking him if the dogs were ever sold, he said, 
4 Never, but at an orra time. Naebody wad sell a 
gude dowg, and naebody wad buy an ill one!* 
He told us with great feeling of the death of one 
of his best dogs by poison. It was plainly still a 
grief to him. ‘What was he poisoned with?* 
‘Strychnia,’ he said as decidedly as might Doctor 
Christison. ‘ How do you know ? ’ ‘I opened 
him, puir fallow, and got him analeezed.’ 

“His interest in children is well known to 
have been great. He under- 
stood them well, and their inno- 
cent laughter and droll ways 
were delightful to him. He had 
always something funny to say 
or do to them, in order to excite 
laughter or wonder ; to try their 
temper, or to draw forth natural 
peculiarities. Many, now grown 
up to be men and women, can 
recall his bewitching ways. I 
remember on one occasion he 
gave a juvenile party, and 
opened the door himself attired 
as a high-class footman, and 
announced each party by the oddest fictitious 
names. 

“Then in correspondence with iuvenile 
friends, or when calling on 
some one who happened to 
be away from home, he 
would in the former case 
send and in the latter case £> r - John Brown's signature 
leave a humorous note juvenile friends 
sometimes signed JEYE 

BEE, in fancy capital letters, often with an artistic 





A jen-and-ink sketch 
made by Dr. Brown 
as a signature to a 
letter to a young 
friend 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


21 



pen-and-ink sketch, not unworthy of a Leech, 
Doyle, or Furniss. These represented, it might be, 
a man with a small forehead, long nose, a stick leg, 
and hands in the side pockets of 
a pea-jacket; or a shaggy-coated 
terrier in a remarkable attitude, 
or some other equally grotesque 
figure.” 

Like most successful and popu- 
lar physicians, he was very busy, 
yet he found time to write a con- 
siderable number of interesting 
essays and sketches, which have 

been published in three volumes ^ 

Called Hor3C Subsecivse, or ^ grotesque signa- 
“ Spare Hours.” Among his works d B ™£ n by Dr - 
are a memoir of his father, 
whom he devotedly loved; and appreciative 
sketches of several other noted men with whom 
he had become acquainted ; essays on professional 
topics; and a number of descriptive and critical 
sketches relating to his humble friends, the dogs. 
This was the subject which he most loved, and 
here his powers of wit and pathos were best 
shown. It is hardly possible to read these stories 
without being moved to laughter by his quaint 
humor, and again to tears by the pathetic trag- 
edies of these lowly lives. His other works are 
seldom read, but these beautiful pictures of his 
dumb friends will endure and be valued when 
much that is more pretentious in literature is 


forgotten. 

We will let this gentle and true man close this 
sketch of his life in his own words : 

“ Good-night ! The night cometh in which 
neither you nor I can work — and may we work 
while it is day ; whatsoever thy hand findeth to 


22 


JOHN BROWN 


do, do it with thy might, for there is no work or 
device in the grave, whither we are all of us 
hastening ; and when the night is spent, may we 
all enter on a healthful, a happy, an everlasting 
to-morrow.” 

“ Thou, Scotland’s son by birth and blood, 

The heir of all she loves, reveres ; 

Her pith of sense, her power of worth, 

Her humour, pathos, pitying tears. 

No borrowed strain, no trick of Art — 

The home-grown theme thine offering ; 

‘Ailie ’ and ‘ Rab,’ ‘ Pet Marjorie,’ 

And ‘ Minchmuir ’ with its haunted spring. 

Thy life a fount of simple joys, 

A sum of duties nobly done ; 

The meed of love, the memory dear, 

In human hearts forever won.” 

J. V* 



* Professor Veitch of Glasgow. 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


F OUR-AND-THIRTY years ago, Bob Ainslie 
and I were coming up Infirmary Street from 
the High School, our heads together, and our 
arms intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know 
how, or why. 

When we got to the top of the street, and 
turned north, we espied a crowd at the Tron 
Church. “A dog-fight ! ” shouted Bob, and was off ; 
and so was I, both of us all but praying that it 
might not be over before we got up ! And is not 
this boy-nature? and human nature too? and don’t 
we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we 
see it? Dogs like fighting; old Isaac says they 
“delight” in it, and for the best of all reasons; 
and boys are not cruel because they like to see the 
fight. They see three of the great cardinal vir- 
tues of dog or man — courage, endurance, and skill 
— in intense action. This is very different from 
a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and 
aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A 
boy — be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he 
be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he 
would have run off with Bob and me fast enough ; 
it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, that all 

[N. B. — The notes at the foot of certain pages in this book 
are by Dr. Brown.] 


[23] 


24 


JOHN BROWN 


boys and men have in witnessing intense energy 
in action. 

Does any curious and finely-ignorant woman 
wish to know how Bob’s eye at a glance announced 
a dog-fight to his brain ? He did not, he could not 
see the dogs fighting ; it was a flash of an inference, 
a rapid induction. The crowd round a couple of 
dogs fighting is a crowd masculine mainly, with 
an occasional active, compassionate woman flutter- 
ing wildly round the outside, and using her tongue 
and her hands freely upon the men, as so many 
“brutes”; it is a crowd annular, compact, and 
mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and 
its heads all bent downwards and inwards, to one 
common focus. 

Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over: 
a small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy 
throttling a large shepherd’s dog, unaccustomed 
to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard 
at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work 
in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, 
but with the sharpest of teeth and a great cour- 
age. Science and breeding, however, soon had 
their own ; the Game Chicken, as the premature 
Bob called him, working his way up, took his 
final grip of poor Yarrows throat, — and he lay 
gasping and done for. His master, a brown, hand- 
some, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, 
would have liked to have knocked down any man, 
would “drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile,” for that 
part, if he had a chance : it was no use kicking the 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


little dog; that would only make him hold the 
closer. Many were the means shouted out in 
mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of ending it. 
“Water!” but there was none near, and many 
cried for it who might have got it from the well 
at Blackfriars Wynd. “Bite the tail!” and a 
large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged man, more 
desirous than wise, with some struggle got the 
bushy end of Yarrow s tail into his ample mouth, 
and bit it with all his might. This was more than 
enough for the much-enduring, much perspiring 
shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over his broad 
visage, delivered a terrific facer upon our large, 
vague, benevolent, middle-aged friend, — who went 
down like a shot. 

Still the Chicken holds; death not far off. 
“Snuff! a pinch of snuff!” observed a calm, 
highly-dressed young buck, with an eye-glass in 
his eye. “Snuff, indeed!” growled the angry 
crowd, affronted and glaring. “ Snuff ! a pinch of 
snuff!” again observes the buck, but with more 
urgency; whereon were produced several open 
boxes, and from a mull which may have been at 
Culloden, he took a pinch, knelt down, and pre- 
sented it to the nose of the Chicken. The laws of 
physiology and of snuff take their course; the 
Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free! 

The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yar- 
row in his arms,— comforting him. 

But the Bull Terrier’s blood is up, and his soul 
unsatisfied ; he grips the first dog he meets, and 


26 


JOHN BROWN 


discovering 1 she is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he 
makes a brief sort of amende , and is off. The boys, 
with Bob and me at their head, are after him: 
down Niddry Street he goes, bent on mischief ; up 
the Cowgate like an arrow — Bob and I, and our 
small men, panting behind. 

There, under the single arch of the South 
Bridge, is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the 
middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in 
his pockets: he is old, gray, brindled, as big as 
a little Highland bull, and has the Shaksperian 
dewlaps shaking as he goes. 

The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens 
on his throat. To our astonishment, the great 
creature does nothing but stand still, hold himself 
up, and roar — yes, roar; a long, serious, remon- 
strative roar. How is this? Bob and I are up 
to them. He is muzzled! The bailies had pro- 
claimed a general muzzling, and his master, study- 
ing strength and economy mainly, had encom- 
passed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, 
constructed out of the leather of some ancient 
breechin . His mouth was open as far as it could ; 
his lips curled up in rage — a sort of terrible grin ; 
his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness ; 
the strap across his mouth tense as a bowstring ; 
his whole frame stiff with indignation and sur- 
prise ; his roar asking us all round, “ Did you ever 
see the like of this?” He looked a statue of anger 
and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite. 

We soon had a crowd: the Chicken held on. 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


27 


“ A knife ! ” cried Bob ; and a cobbler gave him his 
knife: you know the kind of knife, worn away 
obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its 
edge to the tense leather; it ran before it; and 
then! — one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a 
sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise, — and 
the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp, 
and dead. A solemn pause: this was more than 
any of us had bargained for. I turned the little 
fellow over, and saw he was quite dead : the mas- 
tiff had taken him by the small of the back like a 
rat, and broken it. 

He looked down at his victim appeased, 
ashamed, and amazed ; snuffed him all over, 
stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, 
turned round and trotted off. Bob took the dead 
dog up, and said, “John, we’ll bury him after tea.” 
“Yes,” said I, and was off after the mastiff. He 
made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had 
forgotten some engagement. He turned up the 
Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow 
Inn. 

There was a carrier’s cart ready to start, and a 
keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his 
hand at his gray horse’s head, looking about 
angrily for something. “ Rab, ye thief!” said 
he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew 
cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with 
more agility than dignity, and watching his mas- 
ter’s eye, slunk dismayed under the cart, — his ears 
down, and as much as he had of tail down too. 

2 



RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


29 


What a man this must be — thought I — to 
whom my tremendous hero turns tail! The 
carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, 
from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, 
which Bob and I always thought, and still think, 
Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were 
worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was 
mitigated, and condescended to say, “ Rab, ma 
man, puir Rabbie,” — whereupon the stump of a 
tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, 
and were comforted ; the two friends were recon- 
ciled. “ Hupp ! ” and a stroke of the whip were 
given to Jess ; and off went the three. 

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night 
(we had not much of a tea) in the back-green of 
his house in Melville Street, No. 17, with consider- 
able gravity and silence ; and being at the time in 
the Iliad, and, like all boys, Trojans, we of course 
called him Hector. 


Six years have passed, — a long time for a boy 
and a dog : Bob Ainslie is off to the wars ; I am a 
medical student, and clerk at Minto House Hos- 
pital. 

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednes- 
day; and we had much pleasant intimacy. I found 
the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his 
huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did 
not notice him he would plant himself straight 
before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, 


3° 


JOHN BROWN 


and looking up, with his head a little to the one 
side. His master I occasionally saw ; he used to 
call me “Maister John,” but was laconic as any 
Spartan. 

One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the 
hospital, when I saw the large gate open, and in 
walked Rab, with that great and easy saunter of 
his. He looked as if taking general possession of 
the place; like the Duke of Wellington entering 
a subdued city, satiated with victory and peace. 
After him came Jess, now white from age, with 
her cart ; and in it a woman carefully wrapped up, 

— the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and 
looking back. When he saw me, James (for his 
name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque 
“boo,” and said, “Maister John, this is the mis- 
tress ; she’s got a trouble in her breest — some kind 
o’ an income we’re thinkin’.” 

By this time I saw the woman’s face ; she was 
sitting on a sack filled with straw, her husband’s 
plaid round her, and his big-coat, with its large 
white metal buttons, over her feet. 

I never saw a more unforgetable face — pale, 
serious, lonely} delicate, sweet, without being at all 
what we call fine. She looked sixty, and had on a 
mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon ; her 
silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes 

— eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice 


1 It is not easy giving this look by one word; it was 
expressive of her being so much of her life alone. 



“ After him came Jess” 



32 


JOHN BROWN 


in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of the 
overcoming of it: her eyebrows black and deli- 
cate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, 
which few mouths ever are. 

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful 
countenance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. 
“Ailie,” said James, “this is Maister John, the 
young doctor; Rab’s freend, ye ken. We often 
speak aboot you, doctor.” She smiled, and made 
a movement, but said nothing; and prepared to 
come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. 
Had Solomon, in all his glory, been handing down 
the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, he could 
not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, 
more like a gentleman, than did James the How- 
gate carrier, when he lifted down Ailie his wife. 
The contrast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, 
keen, worldly face to hers — pale, subdued, and beau- 
tiful — was something wonderful. Rab looked on 
concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything 
that might turn up, — were it to strangle the nurse, 
the porter, or even me. Ailie and he seemed 
great friends. 

“As I was sayin’, she’s got a kind o’ trouble 
in her breest, doctor ; wull ye tak’ a look at it?” 
We walked into the consulting-room, all four; 
Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and con- 
fidential if cause could be shown, willing also to 
be the reverse, on the same terms. Ailie sat 
down, undid her open gown and her lawn hand- 
kerchief round her neck, and, without a word, 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


33 


showed me her right breast. I looked at and 
examined it carefully, — she and James watching 
me, and Rab eyeing all three. What could I 
say? there it was, that had once been so soft, so 
shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful, so 
“full of all blessed conditions,” — hard as a stone, 
a centre of horrid pain, making that pale face, 
with its gray, lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet 
resolved mouth, express the full measure of suf- 
fering overcome. Why was that gentle, modest, 
sweet woman, clean and lovable, condemned by 
God to bear such a burden ? 

I got her away to bed. “May Rab and me 
bide?” said James. You may ; and Rab, if he will 
behave himself.” “ I’se warrant he’s do that, doc- 
tor ; ” and in slunk the faithful beast. I wish you 
could have seen him. There are no such dogs now. 
He belonged to a lost tribe. As I have said, he 
was brindle, and gray like Rubislaw granite , his 
hair short, hard, and close, like a lion’s ; his body 
thick set, like a little bull — a sort of compressed 
Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety 
pounds’ weight, at the least ; he had a large blunt 
head, his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker 
than any night, a tooth or two — being all he had 
— gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His 
head was scarred with the records of old wounds, 
a sort of series of fields of battle all over it ; one eye 
out, one ear cropped as close as was Archbishop 
Leighton’s father’s; the remaining eye had the 
power of two ; and above it, and in constant 


% 



“ A compressed Hercules of a dog" 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


35 


communication with it, was a tattered rag of an 
ear which was forever unfurling itself, like an old 
flag ; and then that bud of a tail, about one inch 
long, if it could in any sense be said to be long, 
being as broad as long — the mobility, the instanta- 
neousness of that bud were very funny and sur- 
prising, and its expressive twinklings and wink- 
ings, the intercommunications between the eye, 
the ear, and it, were of the oddest and swiftest. 

Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great 
size ; and having fought his way all along the road 
to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in his 
own line as Julius Caesar or the Duke of Welling- 
ton, and had the gravity 1 of all great fighters. 

You must have often observed the likeness of 
certain men to certain animals, and of certain dogs 
to men. Now, I never looked at Rab without think- 
ing of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Ful- 
ler . 2 The same large, heavy menacing, combative, 


*A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, 
of singular pluck, was so much more solemn than the other 
dogs, said, “ Oh, Sir, life’s full o’ sairiousness to him — he just 
never can get enuff o’ fechtin’.” 

8 Fuller was, in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, 
famous as a boxer ; not quarrelsome, but not without ‘ ‘ the stern 
delight ” a man of strength and courage feels in their exercise. 
Dr. Charles Stewart, of Dunearn, whose rare gifts and graces 
as a physician, a divine, a scholar, and a gentleman, live only in 
the memory of those few who knew and survive him, liked to tell 
how Mr. Fuller used to say, that when he was in the pulpit, and 
saw a buirdly man come along the passage, he would instinct- 
ively draw himself up, measure his imaginary antagonist, and 


3^ 


JOHN BROWN 


sombre, honest countenance, the same deep inev- 
itable eye, the same look, — as of thunder asleep, 
but ready, — neither a dog nor a man to be trifled 
with. 

Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined 
Ailie. There was no doubt it must kill her, and 
soon. It could be removed — it might never return 
— it would give her speedy relief — she should 
have it done. She curtsied, looked at James, and 
said, “When?” “To-morrow,” said the kind sur- 
geon — a man of few words. She and James and 
Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and she spoke 
little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each 
other. The following day, at noon, the students 
came in hurrying up the great stair. At the first 
landing-place, on a small well-known blackboard, 
was a bit of paper fastened by wafers, and many 
remains of old wafers beside it. On the paper 
were the words, — “An operation to-day. — J. B. 
Clerk . ” 

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places : 
in they crowded, full of interest and talk. “ What’s 
the case ? ” “ Which side is it ? ” 

Don’t think them heartless; they are neither 
better nor worse than you or I ; they get over their 
professional horrors, and into their proper work , 
and in them pity, as an emotion , ending in itself or 

forecast how he would deal with him, his hands meanwhile con- 
densing into fists, and tending to “square.” He must have 
been a hard hitter if he boxed as he preached — what “The 
Fancy ” would call “ an ugly customer.” 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


37 


at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, 
— while pity as a motive , is quickened, and gains 
power and purpose. It is well for poor human 
nature that it is so. 

The operating theatre is crowded ; much talk 
and fun, and all the cordiality and stir of youth. 
The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. 
In comes Ailie : one look at her quiets and abates 
the eager students. That beautiful old woman is 
too much for them ; they sit down, and are dumb, 
and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power 
of her presence. She walks in quickly, but with- 
out haste ; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, 
her white dimity short-gown, her black bomba- 
zine petticoat, showing her white worsted stock- 
ings and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James 
with Rab. James sat down in the distance, and 
took that huge and noble head between his knees. 
Rab looked perplexed and dangerous; forever 
cocking his ear and dropping it as fast. 

Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on 
the table, as her friend the surgeon told her; 
arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut 
her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. 
The operation was at once begun ; it was neces- 
sarily slow; and chloroform — one of God’s best 
gifts to his suffering children — was then unknown. 
The surgeon did his work. The pale face showed 
its pain, but was still and silent. Rab’s soul was 
working within him ; he saw that something 
strange was going on, — blood flowing from his 


38 


JOHN BROWN 


mistress, and she suffering ; his ragged ear was up, 
and importunate ; he growled and gave now and 
then a sharp impatient yelp ; he would have liked 
to have done something to that man. But James 
had him firm, and gave him a glower from time to 
time, and an intimation of a possible kick ; — all the 
better for James, it kept his eye and his mind off 
Ailie. 

It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and 
decently down from the table, looks for James; 
then turning to the surgeon and the students, she 
curtsies, — and in a low, clear voice, begs their 
pardon if she has behaved ill. The students — 
all of us — wept like children ; the surgeon happed 
her up carefully, — and, resting on James and me, 
Ailie went to her room, Rab following. We put 
her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, 
crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and 
put them carefully under the table, saying, 
“ Maister John, I’m for nane o’ yer strynge nurse 
bodies for Ailie. I’ll be her nurse, and I’ll gang 
aboot on my stockin’ soles as canny as pussy.” 
And so he did ; and handy and clever, and swift 
and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed, 
s-nell, peremptory little man. Everything she got 
he gave her: he seldom slept; and often I saw 
his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed 
on her. As before, they spoke little. 

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us 
how meek and gentle he could be, and occasion- 
ally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


39 


demolishing- some adversary. He took a walk 
with me every day, generally to the Candlemaker 
Row; but he was sombre and mild; declined 
doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and 
indeed submitted to sundry indignities ; and was 
always very ready to turn, and came faster back, 
and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and 
went straight to that door. 

Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather- 
worn cart, to Howgate, and had doubtless her own 
dim and placid meditations and confusions, on the 
absence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural 
freedom from the road and her cart. 

For some days Ailie did well. The wound 
healed “by the first intention ; ” for as James said, 
“Oor Ailie’s skin’s ower clean to beil.” The 
students came in quiet and anxious, and sur- 
rounded her bed. She said she liked to see their 
young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, 
and spoke to her in his own short kind way, pity- 
ing her through his eyes, Rab and James outside 
the circle, — Rab being now reconciled, and even 
cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet 
nobody required worrying, but, as you may sup- 
pose, semper paratus . 

So far well : but, four days after the operation, 
my patient had a sudden and long shivering, a 
“ groosin’,” as she called it. I saw her soon after ; 
her eyes were too bright, her cheek colored ; she 
was restless, and ashamed of being so ; the balance 
was lost ; mischief had begun. On looking at the 


40 


JOHN BROWN 


wound, a blush of red told the secret : her pulse 
was rapid, her breathing anxious and quick, she 
wasn’t herself, as she said, and was vexed at her 
restlessness. We tried what we could. James did 
everything, was everywhere ; never in the way, 
never out of it; Rab subsided under the table 
into a dark place, and was motionless, all but his 
eye, which followed every one. Ailie got worse ; 
began to wander in her mind, gently ; was more 
demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in her 
questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and 
said, “ She was never that way afore, no, never.’" 
For a time she knew her head was wrong, and was 
always asking our pardon — the dear gentle old 
woman: then delirium set in strong, without 
pause. Her brain gave way, and then came that 
terrible spectacle, 

“ The intellectual power, through words and things, 

Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way ; ” 

she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping 
suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David, and the 
diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely 
odds and ends and scraps of ballads. 

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more 
strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her 
tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch voice, 
— the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled 
utterance, the bright and perilous eye; some 
wild words, some household cares, something for 
James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


4i 


and in a “fremyt” voice, and he starting up, sur- 
prised, and slinking off as if he were to blame 
somehow, or had been dreaming he heard. Many 
eager questions and beseechings which James and 
I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed 
to set her all, and then sink back ununderstood. 
It was very sad, but better than many things that 
are not called sad. James hovered about, put out 
and miserable, but active and exact as ever ; read 
to her, when there was a lull, short bits from the 
Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in 
his own rude and serious way, showing great 
knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, 
and doating over her as his “ain Ailie.” “Ailie, 
ma woman ! ” “ Ma ain bonnie wee dawtie ! ” 

The end was drawing on : the golden bowl was 
breaking; the silver cord was fast being loosed — 
that animula , blandula, vagula , hospes , comesque , was 
about to flee. The body and the soul — compan- 
ions for sixty years — were being sundered, and 
taking leave. She was walking, alone, through 
the valley of that shadow, into which one day we 
must all enter, — and yet she was not alone, for 
we know whose rod and staff were comforting 
her. 

One night she had fallen quiet, and as we 
hoped, asleep ; her eyes were shut. We put down 
the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat 
up in bed, and taking a bed-gown which was lying 
on it rolled up, she held it eagerly to her breast, 
— to the right side. We could see her eyes bright 


42 


JOHN BROWN 


with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending 
over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a 
woman holds her sucking child ; opening out her 
night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and 
brooding over it, and murmuring foolish little 
words, as over one whom his mother comforteth, 
and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and 
strange to see her wasted dying look, keen and 
yet vague — her immense love. 

“Preserve me!” groaned James, giving way. 
And then she rocked back and forward, as if to 
make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her 
infinite fondness. “ Wae’s me, doctor ; I declare 
she’s thinkin’ it’s that bairn.” “What bairn?” 
“The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, 
and she’s in the Kingdom forty years and mair.” 
It was plainly true : the pain in the breast, telling 
its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain, was 
misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the 
uneasiness of a breast full of milk, and then the 
child ; and so again once more they were together, 
and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom. 

This was the close. She sank rapidly : the de- 
lirium left her; but, as she whispered, she was 
“clean silly;” it was the lightening before the 
final darkness. After having for some time lain 
still — her eyes shut, she said, “ James ! ” He came 
close to her, and lifting up her calm, clear, beauti- 
ful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me 
kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could not 
see him, then turned to her husband again, as if 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


43 


she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes 
and composed herself. She lay for some time 
breathing quick, and passed away so gently, that 
when we thought she was gone, James, in his old- 
fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After 
a long pause, one small spot of dimness was 
breathed out; it vanished away, and never re- 
turned, leaving the blank clear darkness without 
a stain. “What is our life? it is even a vapor, 
which appeareth for a little time, and then van- 
isheth away.” 

Rab all this time had been full awake and mo- 
tionless : he came forward beside us : Ailie’s hand, 
which James had held, was hanging down ; it was 
soaked with his tears ; Rab licked it all over care- 
fully, looked at her, and returned to his place 
under the table. 

James and I sat, I don’t know how long, but 
for some time, — saying nothing; he started up 
abruptly, and with some noise went to the table, 
and putting his right fore and middle fingers each 
into a shoe, pulled them out, and put them on, 
breaking one of the leather latchets, and mutter- 
ing in anger, “ I never did the like o’ that afore ! ” 

I believe he never did ; nor after either. 
“ Rab ! ” he said roughly, and pointing with his 
thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leapt up, 
and settled himself ; his head and eye to the dead 
face. “Maister John, ye’ll wait for me,” said the 
carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, thun- 
dering down-stairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to 


3 


44 


JOHN BROWN 


a front window : there he was, already round the 
house, and out at the gate, fleeing like a shadow. 

I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid ; so 
I sat down beside Rab, and being wearied, fell 
asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside. 
It was November, and there had been a heavy 
fall of snow. Rab was in statu quo ; he heard the 
noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. 
I looked out ; and there, at the gate, in the dim 
morning — for the sun was not up, was Jess 
and the cart, — a cloud of steam rising from the 
old mare. I did not see James; he was already 
at the door, and came up the stairs and met me. 
It was less than three hours since he left, and he 
must have posted out — who knows how? — to 
Howgate, full nine miles off; yoked Jess, and 
driven her astonished into town. He had an 
armful of blankets, and was streaming with per- 
spiration. He nodded to me, spread out on the 
floor two pairs of clean old blankets having at 
their corners, “A. G., 1794,” in large letters in 
red worsted. These were the initials of Alison 
Graeme, and James may have looked in at her 
from without — himself unseen but not unthought 
of — when he was “wat, wat, and weary,” and 
after having walked many a mile over the hills, 
may have seen her sitting, while “a’ the lave 
were sleepin’,” and by the firelight working her 
name on the blankets, for her ain James’s bed. 

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife 
in his arms, laid her in the blankets, and happed 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


45 


her carefully and firmly up, leaving the face un- 
covered; and then lifting her, he nodded again 
sharply to me, and with a resolved but utterly 
miserable face, strode along the passage, and 
down-stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a 
light ; but he didn’t need it. I went out, holding 
stupidly the candle in my hand in the calm frosty 
air; we were soon at the gate. I could have 
helped him, but I saw he was not to be meddled 
with, and he was strong, and did not need it. He 
laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he had 
lifted her out ten days before — as tenderly as 
when he had her first in his arms when she was 
only “A. G.” — sorted her, leaving that beautiful 
sealed face open to the heavens ; and then taking 
Jess by the head, he moved away. He did not 
notice me, neither did Rab, who presided behind 
the cart. 

I stood till they passed through the long 
shadow of the College, and turned up Nicolson 
Street. I heard the solitary cart sound through 
the streets, and die away and come again ; and I 
returned, thinking of that company going up 
Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the 
morning light touching the Pentlands, and mak- 
ing them like on-looking ghosts; then down the 
hill through Auchindinny woods, past “haunted 
Woodhouselee ;” and as daybreak came sweeping 
up the bleak Lammermuirs, and fell on his own 
door, the company would stop, and James would 
take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her 


4 6 


JOHN BROWN 


on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would 
return with Rab and shut the door. 

James buried his wife, with his neighbors 
mourning, Rab watching the proceedings from 
a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged 
hole would look strange in the midst of the swell- 
ing spotless cushion of white. James looked after 
everything; then rather suddenly fell ill, and 
took to bed; was insensible when the doctor 
came, and soon died. A sort of low fever was 
prevailing in the village, and his want of sleep, 
his exhaustion, and his misery, made him apt to 
take it. The grave was not difficult to reopen. 
A fresh fall of snow had again made all things 
white and smooth. Rab once more looked on, and 
slunk home to the stable. 

And what of Rab ? I asked for him next week 
at the new carrier who got the goodwill of James’s 
business, and was now master of Jess and her cart. 
‘‘How’s Rab?” He put me off, and said rather 
rudely, “What’s your business wi’ the dowg?” I 
was not to be so put off. “ Where’s Rab ? ” He, 
getting confused and red, and intermeddling with 
his hair, said, “ ’Deed, sir, Rab’s deid.” “ Dead ! 
what did he die of?” “Weel, sir,” said he, get- 
ting redder, “ he didna exactly dee ; he was killed. 
I had to brain him wi’ a rack-pin ; there was nae 
doin’ wi’ him. He lay in the treviss wi’ the mear, 
and wadna come oot. I tempit him wi’ kail and 
meat, but he wad tak’ naething, and keepit me 


RAB AND HIS FRIENDS 


47 


frae feedin’ the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin*, 
and grup gruppin’ me by the legs. I was laith to 
mak’ awa wi* the auld dowg, his like wasna atween 
this and Thornhill, — but, ’deed, sir, I could do 
naething else.” I believed him. Fit end for Rab, 
quick and complete. His teeth and his friends 
gone, why should he keep the peace, and be civil ? 

He was buried in the braeface, near the burn, 
the children of the village, his companions, who 
used to make very free with him and sit on his 
ample stomach, as he lay half asleep at the door 
in the sun, watching the solemnity. 



Bibliographical Note. — This story was first published in 
1858 as a pamphlet, and shortly afterward was included in the 
first series of Horce Subsecivce , iSjg. The incidents of the 
tale actually occurred twenty-eight years before its publica- 
tion, in December, 1830, while Dr. Brown was acting as clerk 
in the Minto House Hospital. 


OUR DOGS 


I WAS bitten severely by a little dog when with 
my mother at Moffat Wells, being then three 
years of age, and I have remained “ bitten ” 
ever since in the matter of dogs. I remember 
that little dog, and can at this moment not only 
recall my pain and terror — I have no doubt I was 
to blame — but also her face; and were I allowed 
to search among the shades in the cynic Elysian 
fields, I could pick her out still. All my life I 
have been familiar with these faithful creatures, 
making friends of them, and speaking to them ; 
and the only time I ever addressed the public, 
about a year after being bitten, was at the farm of 
Kirklaw Hill, near Biggar, when the text, given 
out from an empty cart in which the ploughmen 
had placed me, was “Jacob’s dog,” and my entire 
sermon was as follows: — “Some say that Jacob 
had a black dog (the o very long), and some say 
that Jacob had a white dog, but I (imagine the 
presumption of four years!) say Jacob had a 
brown dog, and a brown dog it shall be.” 

I had many intimacies from this time onwards 
— Bawtie, of the inn ; Keeper, the carrier’s bull- 
terrier ; Tiger, a huge tawny mastiff from Edin- 
burgh, which I think must have been an uncle of 
Rab’s; all the sheep dogs at Callands — Spring, 
[48] 


OUR DOGS 


49 


Mavis, Yarrow, Swallow, Cheviot, etc., but it was 
not till I was at college, and my brother at the 
High School, that we possessed a dog. 

TOBY 

Was the most utterly shabby, vulgar, mean-look- 
ing cur I ever beheld : in one word, a tyke. He 
had not one good feature except his teeth and 
eyes, and his bark, if that can be called a feature. 
He was not ugly 
enough to be inter- 
esting; his color 
black and white, his 
shape leggy and 
clumsy ; altogether 
what Sydney Smith 
would have called 
an extraordinarily 
ordinary dog : and, 
as I have said, not 
even greatly ugly, Tob y 

or, as the Aberdonians have it, bonnie wi ill-faur- 
edness. My brother William found him the centre 
of attraction to a multitude of small blackguards 
who were drowning him slowly in Lochend Loch, 
doing their best to lengthen out the process, and 
secure the greatest amount of fun with the 
nearest approach to death. Even then Toby 
showed his great intellect by pretending to be 
dead, and thus gaining time and an inspiration. 



So 


JOHN BROWN 


William bought him for twopence, and as he had 
it not, the boys accompanied him to Pilrig Street, 
when I happened to meet him, and giving the 
twopence to the biggest boy, had the satisfaction 
of seeing a general engagement of much severity, 
during which the twopence disappeared; one 
penny going off with a very small and swift boy, 
and the other vanishing hopelessly into the grat- 
ing of a drain. 

Toby was for weeks in the house unbeknown 
to any one but ourselves two and the cook, and 
from my grandmother’s love of tidiness and 
hatred of dogs and of dirt, I believe she would 
have expelled “ him whom we saved from drown- 
ing,” had not he, in his straightforward way, 
walked into my father’s bedroom one night when 
he was bathing his feet, and introduced himself 
with a wag of his tail, intimating a general will- 
ingness to be happy. My father laughed most 
heartily, and at last Toby, having got his way to 
his bare feet, and having begun to lick his soles 
and between his toes with his small rough tongue, 
my father gave such an unwonted shout of laugh- 
ter, that we — grandmother, sisters, and all of us 
— went in. Grandmother might argue with all 
her energy and skill, but as surely as the pressure 
of Tom Jones’ infantile fist upon Mr. Allworthy’s 
forefinger undid all the arguments of his sister, 
so did Toby’s tongue and fun prove too many for 
grandmother’s eloquence. I somehow think Toby 
must have been up to all this, for I think he had 


OUR DOGS 


Si 


a peculiar love for my father ever after, and 
regarded grandmother from that hour with a 
careful and cool eye. 

Toby, when full grown, was a strong, coarse 
dog ; coarse in shape, in countenance, in hair, and 
in manner. I used to think that, according to the 
Pythagorean doctrine, he must have been, or 
been going to be a Gilmerton carter. He was of 
the bull-terrier variety, coarsened through much 
mongrelism and a dubious and varied ancestry. 
His teeth were good, and he had a large skull, 
and a rich bark as of a dog three times his size, 
and a tail which I never saw equaled — indeed it 
was a tail per se; it was of immense girth and not 
short, equal throughout like a policeman’s baton ; 
the machinery for working it was of great power, 
and acted in a way, as far as I have been able to 
discover, quite original. We called it his ruler. 

When he wished to get into the house, he first 
whined gently, then growled, then gave a sharp 
bark, and then came a resounding, mighty stroke 
which shook the house; this, after much study 
and watching, we found was done by his bring- 
ing the entire length of his solid tail flat upon 
the door, with a sudden and vigorous stroke ; it 
was quite a tour de force or a coup de queue , and he 
was perfect in it at once, his first bang authori- 
tative, having been as masterly and telling as his 
last. 

With all this inbred vulgar air, he was a dog 
of great moral excellence — affectionate, faithful, 


52 


JOHN BROWN 


honest up to his light, with an odd humor as 
peculiar and as strong as his tail. My father, in 
his reserved way, was very fond of him, and there 
must have been very funny scenes with them, 
for we heard bursts of laughter issuing from his 
study when they two were by themselves : there 
was something in him that took that grave, beau- 
tiful, melancholy face. One can fancy him in the 
midst of his books, and sacred work and thoughts, 
pausing and looking at the secular Toby, who was 
looking out for a smile to begin his rough fun, 
and about to end by coursing and gurriri round 
the room, upsetting my father’s books, laid out on 
the floor for consultation, and himself nearly at 
times, as he stood watching him — and off his 
guard and shaking with laughter. Toby had 
always a great desire to accompany my father up 
to town ; this my father’s good taste and sense of 
dignity, besides his fear of losing his friend (a 
vain fear!), forbade, and as the decision of char- 
acter of each was great and nearly equal, it was 
often a drawn game. Toby, ultimately, by mak- 
ing it his entire object, triumphed. He usually 
was nowhere to be seen on my father leaving; he 
however saw him, and lay in wait at the head of 
the street, and up Leith Walk he kept him in 
view from the opposite side like a detective, and 
then, when he knew it was hopeless to hound him 
home, he crossed unblushingly over, and joined 
company, excessively rejoiced of course. 

One Sunday he had gone with him to church, 


OUR DOGS 


S3 


and left him at the vestry door. The second 
psalm was given out, and my father was sitting 
back in the pulpit, when the door at its back, up 
which he came from the vestry, was seen to 
move, and gently open, then, after a long pause, 
a black, shining snout pushed its way steadily 
into the congregation, and was followed by Toby’s 
entire body. He looked somewhat abashed, but 
snuffing his friend, he advanced as if on thin ice, 
and not seeing him, put his forelegs on the pulpit, 
and behold there he was, his own familiar chum. 
I watched all this, and anything more beautiful 
than his look of happiness, of comfort, of entire 
ease when he beheld his friend, — the smoothing 
down of the anxious ears, the swing of gladness 
of that mighty tail, — I don’t expect soon to see. 
My father quietly opened the door, and Toby was 
at his feet and invisible to all but himself ; had 
he sent old George Peaston, the “minister’s man,’’ 
to put him out, Toby would probably have shown 
his teeth, and astonished George. He slunk home 
as soon as he could, and never repeated that 
exploit. 

I never saw in any other dog the sudden 
transition from discretion, not to say abject cow- 
ardice, to blazing and permanent valor. From 
his earliest years he showed a general meanness 
of blood, inherited from many generations of 
starved, bekicked, and down-trodden forefathers 
and mothers, resulting in a condition of intense 
abjectness in all matters of personal fear; any- 


54 


JOHN BROWN 


body, even a beggar, by a gowl and a threat of 
eye, could send him off howling by anticipation, 
with that mighty tail between his legs. But it 
was not always so to be, and I had the privilege 
of seeing courage, reasonable, absolute, and for 
life, spring up in Toby at once, as did Athene 
from the skull of Jove. It happened thus: — 
Toby was in the way of hiding his culinary 


bones in the small 
gardens before 
his own and 



Mr* the neighboring 
ftflk doors. Mr. Scrym- 
geour, two doors 


if off, a bulky, chol- 


eric, red-haired, 
red-faced man — 
torvo vultu — was, 
by the law of 
contrast, a great 
cultivator of flow- 
ers, and he had 
often scowled 


V ^ i 
Tody at work 


Toby into all but non-existence by a stamp of 
his foot and a glare of his eye. One day his 
gate being open, in walks Toby with a huge 
bone, and making a hole where Scrymgeour 
had two minutes before been planting some pre- 
cious slip, the name of which on paper and on a 
stick Toby made very light of, substituted his 
bone, and was engaged covering it, or thinking 


OUR DOGS 


55 


he was covering it up with his shoveling nose 
(a very odd relic of paradise in the dog), when S. 
spied him through the inner glass-door, and was 
out upon him like the Assyrian, with a terrible 
gowl. I watched them. Instantly Toby made 
straight at him with a roar too, and an eye more 
torve than Scrymgeour’s, who, retreating without 
reserve, fell prostrate, there is reason to believe, 
in his own lobby. Toby contented himself with 
proclaiming his victory at the door, and return- 
ing finished his bone-planting at his leisure ; the 
enemy, who had scuttled behind the glass-door, 
glaring at him. 

From this moment Toby was an altered dog. 
Pluck at first sight was lord of all; from that 
time dated his first tremendous deliverance of 
tail against the door which we called “come 
listen to my tail.” That very evening he paid a 
visit to Leo, next door’s dog, a big, tyrannical 
bully and coward, which its master thought a 
Newfoundland, but whose pedigree we knew 
better; this brute continued the same system of 
chronic extermination which was interrupted at 
Lochend, — having Toby down among his feet, 
and threatening him with instant death two or 
three times a day. To him Toby paid a visit 
that very evening, down into his den, and walked 
about, as much as to say “Come on, Macduff!” 
but Macduff did not come on, and henceforward 
there was an armed neutrality, and they merely 
stiffened up and made their backs rigid, pretended 


5 6 


JOHN BROWN 


each not to see the other, walking solemnly 
round, as is the manner of dogs. Toby worked 
his new-found faculty thoroughly, but with dis- 
cretion. He killed cats, astonished beggars, kept 
his own in his own garden against all comers, 
and came off victorious in several well-fought 
battles ; but he was not quarrelsome or foolhardy. 
It was very odd how his carriage changed, hold- 
ing his head up, and how much pleasanter he 
was at home. To my father, next to William, 
who was his Humane Society man, he remained 
stanch. He had a great dislike to all things 
abnormal, as the phrase now is. A young lady 
of his acquaintance was calling one day, and, 
relating some distressing events, she became 
hysterical. Of this Toby did not approve, and 
sallying from under my father’s chair, attacked 
his friend, barking fiercely, and cut short the 
hysterics better than any sal volatile or valfrian. 
He then made abject apologies to the patient, and 
slunk back to his chair. 

And what of his end ? for the misery of dogs 

is that they die so soon, or, as Sir Walter says, 

it is well they do ; for if they lived as long as 
a Christian, and we liked them in proportion, 
and they then died, he said that was a thing he 
could not stand. 

His exit was lamentable, and had a strange 

poetic or tragic relation to his entrance. My 

father was out of town ; I was away in England. 
Whether it was that the absence of my father had 

4 


OUR DOGS 


57 


relaxed his power of moral restraint, or whether 
through neglect of the servant he had been des- 
perately hungry, or most likely both being true, 
Toby was discovered with the remains of a cold 
leg of mutton, on which he had made an ample 
meal ; 1 this he was in vain endeavoring to plant 
as of old, in the hope of its remaining undiscov- 
ered till to-morrow’s hunger returned, the whole 
shank bone sticking up unmistakably. This was 
seen by our excellent and Radamanthine grand- 
mother, who pronounced sentence on the instant ; 
and next day, as William was leaving for the 
High School, did he in the sour morning, through 
an easterly haur, behold him “whom he saved 
from drowning,” and whom, with better results 
than in the case of Launce and Crab, he had 
taught, as if one should say, “thus would I teach a 
dog,” — dangling by his own chain from his own 
lamp-post, one of his hind feet just touching the 
pavement, and his body preternaturally elongated. 

William found him dead and warm, and falling 
in with the milk-boy at the head of the street, 
questioned him, and discovered that he was the 
executioner, and had got twopence, he — Toby’s 
every morning’s crony, who met him and accom- 
panied him up the street, and licked the outside 
of his can — had, with an eye to speed and con- 

1 Toby was in the state of the shepherd boy whom George 
Webster met in Glenshee, and asked, “ My man, were you ever 
fou’?” “Ay, aince” — speaking slowly, as if remembering — 
“Ay, aince.” ' * What on ? ” “ Cauld mutton ! ” 


S» 


JOHN BROWN 


venience, and a want of taste, not to say principle 
and affection, horrible still to think of, suspended 
Toby’s animation beyond all hope. William 
instantly fell upon him, upsetting his milk and 
cream, and gave him a thorough licking, to his 
own intense relief ; and, being late, he got from 
Pyper, who was a martinet, the customary palmies, 
which he bore with something approaching to 
pleasure. So died Toby: my father said little, 
but he missed and mourned his friend. 

There is reason to believe that by one of those 
curious intertwistings of existence, the milk-boy 
was that one of the drowning party who got the 
penny of the twopence. 

WYLIE 

Our next friend was an exquisite shepherd’s 
dog; fleet, thin-flanked, dainty, and handsome as 
a small greyhound, with all the grace of silky 
waving black and tan hair. We got her thus. 
Being then young and keen botanists, and full of 
the knowledge and love of Tweedside, having 
been on every hill-top from Muckle Mendic to 
Hundleshope and the Lee Pen, and having fished 
every water from Tarth to the Leithen, we discov- 
ered early in spring that young Stewart, author 
of an excellent book on natural history, a young 
man of great promise and early death, had found 
the Buxbaumia aphylla, a beautiful and odd-looking 
moss, west of Newbie heights, in the very month 
we were that moment in. We resolved to start 


OUR DOGS 


59 


next day. We walked to Peebles, and then up 
Haystoun Glen to the cottage of Adam Cairns, 
the aged shepherd of the Newbie hirsel, of whom 
we knew, and who knew of us from his daughter, 



Nancy Cairns, a servant with Uncle Aitken of 
Callands. We found our way up the burn with 
difficulty, as the evening was getting dark ; and on 
getting near the cottage heard them at worship. 
We got in, and made ourselves known, and got 
a famous tea, and such cream and oat cake!— old 


6o 


JOHN BROWN 


Adam looking on ns as “clean dementit” to come 
out for “a bit moss,” which, however, he knew, 
and with some pride said he would take us in the 
morning to the place. As we were going into a 
box bed for the night, two young men came in, 
and said they were “gaun to burn the water.” Off 
we set. It was a clear, dark, starlight, frosty night. 
They had their leisters and tar torches, and it was 
something worth seeing — the wild flame, the 
young fellows striking the fish coming to the 
light — how splendid they looked with the light 
on their scales, coming out of the darkness — the 
stumblings and quenchings suddenly of the lights, 
as the torch-bearer fell into a deep pool. We got 
home past midnight, and slept as we seldom sleep 
now. In the morning Adam, who had been long 
risen, and up the “Hope" with his dog, when he 
saw we had wakened, told us there was four inches 
of snow, and we soon saw it was too true. So we 
had to go home without our cryptogamic prize. 

It turned out that Adam, who was an old man 
and frail, and had made some money, was going 
at Whitsunday to leave, and live with his son 
in Glasgow. We had been admiring the beauty 
and gentleness and perfect shape of Wylie, the 
finest colley I ever saw, and said, “ What are you 
going to do with Wylie?” “’Deed,” says he, “I 
hardly ken. I canna think o’ sellin’ her, though 
she’s worth four pound, and she’ll no like the 
toun.” I said, “Would you let me have her?” 
and Adam, looking at her fondly — she came up 


OUR DOGS 


61 


instantly to him, and made of him — said, “Ay, I 
wull, if ye’ll be gude to her;” and it was settled 
that when Adam left for Glasgow she should be 
sent into Albany Street by the carrier. 

She came, and was at once taken to all onr 
hearts — even grandmother liked her; and though 
she was often pensive, as if thinking of her master 
and her work on the hills, she made herself at 



Wylie and the Sheep 


home, and behaved in all respects like a lady. 
When out with me, if she saw sheep in the streets 
or road, she got quite excited, and helped the work, 
and was curiously useful, the being so making her 
wonderfully happy. And so her little life went 
on, never doing wrong, always blithe and kind and 
beautiful. But some months after she came, there 
was a mystery about her: every Tuesday evening 
she disappeared; we tried to watch her, but in 
vain, she was always off by nine P. M., and was 


62 


JOHN BROWN 


away all night, coming back next day wearied and 
all over mud, as if she had traveled far. She slept 
all next day. This went on for some months and 
we could make nothing of it. Poor dear creature, 
she looked at us wistfully when she came in, as if 
she would have told us if she could, and was 
especially fond, though tired. 

Well, one day I was walking across the Grass- 
market, with Wylie at my heels, when two shep- 
herds started, and looking at her, one said, 
“That’s her; that’s the wonderfu’ wee bitch that 
naebody kens.” I asked him what he meant, and 
he told me that for months past she had made her 
appearance by the first daylight at the “ buchts ” 
or sheep-pens in the cattle market, and worked 
incessantly, and to excellent purpose, in helping 
the shepherds to get their sheep and lambs in. 
The man said with a sort of transport, “She’s a 
perfect meeracle ; flees about like a speerit, and 
never gangs wrang ; wears but never grups, and 
beats a’ oor dowgs. She’s a perfect meeracle, and 
as soople as a maukin.” Then he related how 
they all knew her, and said, “There’s that wee 
fell yin; we’ll get them in noo.” They tried to 
coax her to stop and be caught, but no, she was 
gentle, but off ; and for many a day that “ wee fell 
yin ” was spoken of by these rough fellows. She 
continued this amateur work till she died, which 
she did in peace. 

It is very touching the regard the south-country 
shepherds have to their dogs. Professor Syme 


OUR DOGS 


63 


one day, many years ago, when living in Forres 
Street, was looking out of his window, and he saw 
a young shepherd striding down North Charlotte 
Street, as if making for his house; it was mid- 
summer. The man had his dog with him, and 
Mr. Syme noticed that he followed the dog, and 
not it him, though he contrived to steer for the 
house. He came, and was ushered into his room ; 
he wished advice about some ailment, and Mr. 
Syme saw that he had a bit of twine round the 
dog’s neck, which he let drop out of his hand 
when he entered the room. He asked him the 
meaning of this, and he explained that the magis- 
trates had issued a mad-dog proclamation, com- 
manding all dogs to be muzzled or led on pain of 
death. “And why do you go about as I saw you 
did before you came into me?” “Oh,” said he, 
looking awkward, “ I didna want Birkie to ken he 
was tied.” Where will you find truer courtesy 
and finer feeling ? He didn’t want to hurt Birkie’s 
feelings. 

Mr. Carruthers of Inverness told me a new 
story of these wise sheep dogs. A butcher from 
Inverness had purchased some sheep at Dingwall, 
and giving them in charge to his dog, left the 
road. The dog drove them on, till coming to a 
toll, the toll-wife stood before the drove, demand- 
ing her dues. The dog looked at her, and, jump- 
ing on her back, crossed his forelegs over her 
arms. The sheep passed through, and the dog 
took his place behind them, and went on his way. 


6 4 


JOHN BROWN 


RAB 

Of Rab I have little to say, indeed have little 
right to speak of him as one of “our dogs;” but 
nobody will be sorry to hear anything of that 
noble fellow. Ailie, the day or two after the opera- 
tion, when she was well and cheery, spoke about 
him, and said she would tell me fine stories when 
I came out, as I promised to do, to see her at 



“ Struggling and pulling back with all his might ” 

Howgate. I asked her how James came to get 
him. She told me that one day she saw James 
coming down from Leadburn with the cart; he 
had been away west, getting eggs and butter, 
cheese and hens, for Edinburgh. She saw he 
was in some trouble, and on looking, there was 


OUR DOGS 


65 


what she thought a young calf being dragged, or, 
as she called it “haurled,” at the back of the cart. 
James was in front, and when he came up, very 
warm and very angry, she saw that there was a 
huge young dog tied to the cart, struggling and 
pulling back with all his might, and as she said 
“lookin’ fearsom.” James, who was out of breath 
and temper, being past his time, explained to 
Ailie, that this “muckle brute o’ a whalp” had 
been worrying sheep, and terrifying everybody 
up at Sir George Montgomery’s at Macbie Hill, 
and that Sir George had ordered him to be hanged, 
which, however, was sooner said than done, as 
“the thief” showed his intentions of dying hard. 
James came up just as Sir George had sent for his 
gun ; and as the dog had more than once shown a 
liking for him, he said he “ wad gie him a chance ; ” 
and so he tied him to his cart. Young Rab, fear- 
ing some mischief, had been entering a series of 
protests all the way, and nearly strangling himself 
to spite James and Jess, besides giving Jess more 
than usual to do. “I wish I had let Sir George pit 
that charge into him, the thrawn brute,” said 
James. But Ailie had seen that in his foreleg 
there was a splinter of wood, which he had likely 
got when objecting to be hanged, and that he was 
miserably lame. So she got James to leave him 
with her, and go straight into Edinburgh. She 
gave him water, and by her woman’s wit got his 
lame paw under a door, so that he couldn’t sud- 
denly get at her, then with a quick firm hand she 


66 


JOHN BROWN 


plucked out the splinter, and put in an ample 
meal. She went in some time after, taking no 
notice of him, and he came limping up, and laid 
his great jaws in her lap ; from that moment they 
were “chief,” as she said, James finding him 
mansuete and civil when he returned. 


She said it was Rab’s habit to make his appear- 
ance exactly half an hour before his master, trot- 



ting in full of importance, as if to say, “He’s all 
right, he’ll be here.” One morning James came 
without him. He had left Edinburgh very early, 
and in coming near Auchindinny, at a lonely part i 
of the road, a man sprang out on him, and de- 
manded his money. James, who was a cool hand, 


OUR DOGS 


67 


said, “Weel a weel, let me get it,” and stepping 
back, he said to Rab, “Speak till him, my man.” 
In an instant Rab was standing over him, threat- 
ening strangulation if he stirred. James pushed 
on, leaving Rab in charge; he looked back and 
saw that every attempt to rise was summarily put 
down. As he was telling Ailie the story, up came 
Rab with that great swing of his. It turned out 
that the robber was a Howgate lad, the worthless 
son of a neighbor, and Rab knowing him had let 
him cheaply off. * * * James, who did 

not know the way to tell an untruth, or embellish 
anything, told me this as what he called “a fact 
positeevely .” 

WASP 

Was a dark brindled bull-terrier, as pure in blood 
as Cruiser or Wild Dayrell. 

She was brought by my 
brother from Otley, in the 
West Riding. She was 
very handsome, fierce, and 
gentle, with a small, com- 
pact, finely shaped head, 
and a pair of wonderful 
eyes — as full of fire and 
of softness as Grisi’s; in- 
deed she had to my eye a 
curious look of that won- 
derful genius — at once 
wild and fond. It was 



68 


JOHN BROWN 


a fine sight to see her on the prowl across 
Bowden Moor, now cantering with her nose down, 
now gathered up on the top of a dyke, and with 
erect ears, looking across the wild like a moss- 
trooper out on business, keen and fell. She could 
do everything it became a dog to do, from killing 
an otter or a polecat, to watching and playing 
with a baby, and was as docile to her master as 
she was surly to all else. She was not quarrel- 
some, but “being in,” she would have pleased 
Polonius as much, as in being “ ware of entrance.” 
She was never beaten, and she killed on the spot 
several of the country bullies who came out upon 
her when following her master in his rounds. 
She generally sent them off howling with one 
snap, but if this was not enough, she made an end 
of it. 

But it was as a mother that she shone ; and to 
see the gypsy, Hagar-like creature nursing her 
occasional Ishmael — playing with him, and fond- 
ling him all over, teaching his teeth to war, and 
with her eye and the curl of her lip daring any 
one but her master to touch him, was like seeing 
Grisi watching her darling “ Gennaro ,” who so lit- 
tle knew why and how much she loved him. 

Once when she had three pups, one of them 
died. For two days and nights she gave herself 
up to trying to bring it to life — licking it, and 
turning it over and over, growling over it, and all 
but worrying it to awake it. She paid no atten- 
tion to the living two, gave them no milk, flung 


OUR DOGS 


69 


them away with her teeth, and would have killed 
them, had they been allowed to remain with her. 
She was as one possessed, and neither ate, nor 
drank, nor slept, was heavy and miserable with 
her milk, and in such a state of excitement that 
no one could remove the dead pup. 

Early on the third day she was seen to take 
the pup in her mouth, and start across the fields 
towards the Tweed, striding like a race-horse — 
she plunged in, holding up her burden, and at 
the middle of the stream dropped it and swam 
swiftly ashore ; then she stood and watched the 
little dark lump floating away, bobbing up and 
down with the current, and losing it at last far 
down, she made her way home, sought out the 
living two, devoured them with her love, carried 
them one by one to her lair, and gave herself up 
wholly to nurse them ; you can fancy her mental 
and bodily happiness and relief when they were 
pulling away — and theirs. 

On one occasion my brother had lent her to a 
woman who lived in a lonely house, and whose 
husband was away for a time. She was a capital 
watch. One day an Italian with his organ came 
— first begging, then demanding money — show- 
ing that he knew she was alone, and that he 
meant to help himself, if she didn’t. She 
threatened to “lowse the dowg;” but as this 
was Greek to him, he pushed on. She had just 
time to set Wasp at him. It was very short 
work. She had him by the throat, pulled him 


7o 


JOHN BROWN 


and his organ down with a heavy crash, the 
organ giving a ludicrous sort of cry of musical 
pain. Wasp, thinking this was from some crea- 
ture within, possibly a whittret , left the ruffian, 
and set to work tooth and nail on the box. Its 
master slunk off, and with mingled fury and 



“Set to work tooth and nail on the box ” 


thankfulness watched her disemboweling his 
only means of an honest living. The woman 
good-naturedly took her off, and signed to the 
miscreant to make himself and his remains 
scarce. This he did with a scowl ; and was found 
in the evening in the village, telling a series 


OUR DOGS 


7i 


of lies to the watch-maker, and bribing him 
with a shilling to mend his pipes — “his kist o’ 
whussels.” 



Dr. Brown's drawing of another dog called Wasp, made on 
a calling card jor a young friend 


JOCK 


Was insane from his birth ; at first an amabilis 
insania , but ending in mischief and sudden death. 
He was an English terrier, fawn-colored ; his 
mother’s name Vamp (Vampire), and his father’s 
Demon. He was more properly daft than mad ; 
his courage, muscularity, and prodigious animal 
spirits making him insufferable, and never allow- 
ing one sane feature of himself any chance. No 
sooner was the street door open, than he was 
throttling the first dog passing, bringing upon 
himself and me endless grief. Cats he tossed up 
into the air, and crushed their spines as they fell. 


72 


JOHN BROWN 


Old ladies he upset by jumping over their heads ; 
old gentlemen by running between their legs. 
At home, he would think nothing of leaping 
through the tea-things, upsetting the urn, cream, 


etc., and at dinner 
the same sort of 
thing. I believe 
if I could have 
found time to 
thrash him suffici- 
ently, and let him 
be a year older, 
we might have 
kept him; but 
having upset an 
Earl when the 



Jock 


streets were muddy, I had to part with him. 
He was sent to a clergyman in the island of 
Westray, one of the Orkneys ; and though he had 
a wretched voyage, and was as sick as any dog, 
he signalized the first moment of his arrival at 
the manse, by strangling an ancient monkey, or 
“puggy,” the pet of the minister, — who was a 
bachelor, — and the wonder of the island. Jock 
henceforward took to evil courses, extracting the 
kidneys of the best young rams, driving whole 
hirsels down steep places into the sea, till at last 
all the guns of Westray were pointed at him, as 
he stood at bay under a huge rock on the shore, 
and blew him into space. I always regret his 
end, and blame myself for sparing the rod. Of 


OUR DOGS 


73 


DUCHIE 

I have already spoken; her oddities were end- 
less. We had and still have a dear friend, — 
“ Cousin Susan ” she is called by many who are 
not her cousins — a perfect lady, and, though 



Duchie 


hopelessly deaf, as gentle and contented as ever 
Griselda with the full use of her ears; quite as 
great a pet, in a word, of us all as Duchie was of 
ours. One day we found her mourning the death 
of a cat, a great playfellow of the Sputchard’s, and 
her small Grace was with us when we were con- 
doling with her and we saw that she looked very 
wistfully at Duchie. I wrote on the slate, “Would 


74 


JOHN BROWN 


you like her?” and she through her tears said, 
“You know that would never do.” But it did do. 
We left Duchie that very night, and though she 
paid us frequent visits, she was Cousin Susan’s for 
life. I fear indulgence dulled her moral sense. 
She was an immense happiness to her mistress, 
whose silent and lonely days she made glad with 
her oddity and mirth. And yet the small creature, 
old, toothless, and blind, domineered over her 
gentle friend — threatening her sometimes if she 
presumed to remove the small Fury from the 
inside of her own bed, into which it pleased her 
to creep. Indeed, I believe it is too true, though 
it was inferred only, that her mistress and friend 
spent a great part of a winter night in trying to 
coax her dear little ruffian out of the centre of the 
bed. One day the cook asked what she would 
have for dinner: “I would like a mutton chop, 
but then, you know, Duchie likes minced veal 
better!” The faithful and happy little creature 
died at a great age, of natural decay. 

But time would 
fail me, and I fear 
patience would fail 
you, my reader, were 
I to tell you of 
Crab, of John Pym, 
of Puck, and of the 
rest. Crab, the Mugger’s dog, grave, with deep-set, 
melancholy eyes, as of a nobleman (say the Master 



OUR DOGS 


75 


of Ravenswood) in disguise, large visaged, shaggy, 

indomitable, come of the pure Piper Allan’s breed. 

This Piper Allan, 

you must know, 

lived some two 

hundred years 

ago in Cocquet 

Water, piping 

like Homer, from 
* 

place to place, 
and famous not 
less for his dog 
than for his 
music, his news 
and his songs. 

The Earl of 
Northumber- 
land, of his day, offered the piper a small farm for 
his dog, but after deliberating for a day, Allan 
said, “Na, na, ma Lord, keep yir ferum; what wud a 
piper do wi’ a ferum ? ” 1 From this dog descended 

1 1 have to thank cordially the writer of the following let- 
ters. They are from the pen of Mr. Robert White, Newcastle- 
on-Tyne, author of the History of the Battle of Otterburn, and 
one of the last of the noble band of literary and local antiqua- 
rians of which “ Muncaster” has so long been the seat, up to all 
traditional lore and story of the stout-hearted Border: 

“ In the second series of your Horce Subsecivce , p. 162, you 
alluded to the dog Crab being come of the pure ‘ Piper Allan’s 
breed,’ and say that the said ‘ Piper Allan lived some two 
hundred years ago in Cocquet (Coquet) Water.’ 

1 ‘ In Northumberland and over the Borders, James Allan is 



76 


JOHN BROWN 


Davidson (the original Dandie Dinmont), of Hynd- 
lee’s breed, and Crab could count his kin up to him. 
He had a great look of the Right Honorable 
Edward Ellice, and had much of his energy and 
wecht ; had there been a dog House of Commons, 
Crab would have spoken as seldom, and been as 


generally known as Piper Allan. He was born about 1733. and 
after leading a strange life, towards his seventieth year he 
stole a horse at Gateshead in the county of Durham, and took 
it to Lilliesleaf in Roxburghshire, where he was apprehended, 
and sent to Durham jail. He was found guilty, and received 
sentence of death, but was reprieved, and afterwards had his 
punishment mitigated to perpetual imprisonment. After being 
confined for nearly seven years, his health failed, and he was 
removed to the House of Correction, where he lived about five 
months, and died at Durham, November 13, 1810, aged about 
seventy-seven years. 

“Some time ago in Willis’ Current Notes , which are now 
discontinued, an original letter of Sir Walter Scott was printed, 
in which is the following paragraph : — 

“‘I should be glad to see a copy of the Alnwick work upon 
Allan, whom I have often seen and heard, particularly at the 
Kelso Races. He was an admirable piper, yet a desperate 
reprobate. The last time I saw him he was in absolute beg- 
gary and had behaved himself so ill at my uncle’s (Thomas 
Scott of Monklaw) house, that the old gentleman, himself a 
most admirable piper, would not on any account give him 
quarters, though I interceded earnestly for him, “ the knave,” 
as Davie tells Justice Shallow, “being my very good friend.” 
He was then quite like a pauper, with his wife, and an ass, in 
the true gipsy fashion. When I first saw him at Kelso Races, 
he wore the Northumberland livery, a blue coat, with a silver 
crescent on his arm.’ (Allen was piper to Her Grace the 
Duchess of Northumberland.) 

“ The father of Jamie Allan was named Willie, and he also 
was a good piper, besides being an excellent fisher and a keen 


OUR DOGS 


great a power in the house, as the formidable and 
faithful time-out-of-mind member for Coventry. 

John Pym was a smaller dog than Crab, of more 
fashionable blood, being a son of Mr. Somner’s 
famous Shem, whose father and brother are said 
to have been found dead in a drain into which the 


otter-hunter. He had two favorite dogs for the latter sport, — 
Charley and Phoebe, — and such was the wisdom of the former 
that he used to say, ‘ If Charley could speak he would sell the 
otter’s skin.’ Probably Crab may have been of this kind. 

“ James Davidson of Hindlee was a great fox-hunter, and 
his breed of terriers — the pepper-and-mustard class — were the 
best over all the country. I have seen the genuine breed long 
ago at Ned Dunn’s of the Whitelee at the head of Redesdale. 
Among common dogs they were something like the Black 
Dwarf among men, long-bodied animals with strong short legs, 
wiry haired, and at the first look not unlike a low four-footed 
stool, such as I have seen in houses in the south of Scotland 
forty years ago. They were sent in to the fox when he was 
earthed, and fought him there. They seemed at first when out 
of doors to be shy, timid things, and would have slunk away 
from a fierce collie dog, but if he seized one of them, and the 
blood of the little creature got up, it just took a hold of him in 
a biting place, and held on, never quitting till he found to his 
cost he had caught a tartar. 

“ I am now convinced, from what I have gleaned of the life 
of James Allan, and a notice in Mackenzie’s History of North- 
umberland , that your Piper Allan was William, the father of 
James. He was born at Bellingham in 1704. He was nearly 
six feet high, of a ruddy complexion, and had much shrewd- 
ness, wit, and independence of mind. In early life he became 
a good player on the bagpipes. He mended pots and pans, 
made spoons, baskets, and besoms, and was a keen and excel- 
lent fisher. In the Valley of Coquet he married a gipsy girl, 
named Betty, who bore him six children, and James was the 
youngest save one ; but she died in the prime of life. He was 


7* 


JOHN BROWN 



John Pym 


hounds had run a fox. It had three entrances : 
the father was put in at one hole, the son at 
another, and speedily the fox bolted out at the 
third, but no appearance of the little terriers, and, 

married a second time to an unfortunate daughter of a Presby- 
terian minister. 

“Among his other pursuits, he excelled especially in the 
hunting of otters, and kept eight or ten dogs for that particular 
sport. Please turn to my previous letter, and in the passage, 
‘if Charley could speak,’ etc., dele Charley and insert Peach- 
em. This dog was Will’s chief favorite, and such confidence 
had he in the animal, that when hunting he would at times 
observe, ‘ When my Peachem gi’es mouth, I durst always sell 
the otter’s skin.’ Charley was also an excellent dog. Lord 
Ravensworth once employed Willie to kill the otters that 
infested his pond at Eslington Hall, which he soon accom- 
plished ; and on going away, the steward, Mr. Bell, offered, in 
his Lordship’s name, to buy Charley at the Piper’s own price. 


OUR DOGS 


79 


on digging, they were found dead, locked in each 
other’s jaws; they had met, and it being dark, 
and there being no time for explanations, they 
had throttled each other. John was made of the 
same sort of stuff, and was as combative and vic- 
torious as his great namesake, and not unlike him 

Will turned round very haughtily, and exclaimed, ‘ By the 
wuns , his hale estate canna buy Charley ! ’ 

“ He was a capital piper, and composed two popular tunes, 
‘We’ll a’ to the Coquet and Woo ' and ‘ Salmon Tails up the 
Water.’ These I never heard, and probably they may be lost. 
When his end drew near, he was something like Rob Roy in 
his neglect of religious impressions. When reminded that he 
was dying, he exclaimed, ‘ By jing, I’ll get foul play, then, to 
dee before my billie, wha’s ten years aulder!’ When still 
closer pressed to ponder on his condition, he said, ‘ Gi’e me 
my pipes, and I’ll play ye “ Dorrington Lads” yet.’ Thus he 
exhausted his last breath in playing his favorite strain. He 
died 1 8th February, 1779, aged seventy-five years, and was 
buried in Rothbury churchyard. His son James was born at 
Hepple, in Coquetdale, March, 1734. 

“The following verses on old Will are in the ‘ Lay of the 
Reedwater Minstrel ’: — 

‘A stalwart Tinkler wight was he, 

And weel could mend a pot or pan ; 

And deftly Wull could thraw a flee, 

An’ neatly weave the willow-wan’. 

‘An’ sweetly wild were Allan’s strains, 

An’ mony a jig an’ reel he blew ; 

Wi’ merry lilts he charm’d the swains, 

Wi’ barbed spear the otter slew. 


‘Nae mair he’ll scan, wi’ anxious eye, 
The sandy shores of winding Reed ; 
Nae mair he’ll tempt the finny fry, — 
The king o’ Tinklers, Allan’s dead. 


8o 


JOHN BROWN 


in some of his not so creditable qualities. He 
must, I think, have been related to a certain dog 
to whom “life was full o’ sairiousness,” but in 
John’s case the same cause produced an opposite 
effect. John was gay and light-hearted, even 
when there was not “ enuff of fechtin,” which, 


‘ Nae mair at Mell or Merry Night 

The cheering bagpipes IVull shall blaw : 

Nae mair the village throng delight, 

Grim death has laid the minstrel law. 

4 Now trouts, exulting, cut the wave ; 

Triumphant see the otter glide ; 

Their deadly foe lies in his grave, 

Charley and Phoebe by his side. ’ ” 

I add another bit from Mr. White, too characteristic of 
that mixture of kindness and cruelty, of tenderness and 
pluck, — Dandie Dinmont, — and of the exercise, called one- 
sidedly * * * 4 sport.’ It ends happily, which is more than the big 
store-farmer wished : — 

“ The mother of the far-famed Peppers and Mustards was 
a dark-colored, rough -haired bitch of the name of Tar. David- 
son wanted a cat from some of the cottages at a distance from 
Hindlee, that he might have the young dogs tried upon it. 
One of his shepherds chanced to call at Andrew TelferVhouse 
(the grandfather, I believe, of my late friend), where he saw 
baudrons sitting on the end of a dresser near the door ; and 
the house being low and dark, he swept her into his plaid-neuk 
on going out, and carried her home. Next morning she was 
introduced to a covered drain, which ran across the road, the 
said drain being closed up at one end, whereby she was com- 
pelled to give battle to her foes. A young terrier was the first 
to oppose her, and paid for its rashness by retreating from the 
drain with the skin almost torn from its nose. Another of the 
same age met with the same punishment, and Davidson, con- 
siderably irritated, brought forward Tar, the old dame, who, 
by her age and experience, he considered, would be more than 


OUR DOGS 


81 


however, seldom happened, there being a market 
every week in Melrose, and John appearing most 
punctually at the cross to challenge all comers, 
and being short legged, he inveigled every dog 
into an engagement by first attacking him, and 
then falling down on his back, in which posture 
he latterly fought and won all his battles. 

What can I say of Puck 1 — the thoroughbred — 


a match for the cat. There was sore fighting for a time, till 
again Puss was victorious, and Tar withdrew from the conflict 
in such a condition that her master exclaimed, ‘ Confoond the 
cat, she’s tumblt an e’e oot o’ the bitch ! ’ which indeed was the 
case. ‘ Tak awa the stanes frae the tap o’ the cundy,’ said 
Davidson, ‘ and we’ll ha’e her worried at ance.’ The stones 
were removed, and out leapt the cat in the middle of her ene- 
mies. Fortunately for her, however, it happened that a stone 
wall was continued up the side of the road, which she instantly 
mounted, and, running along the top thereof, with the dogs in 
full cry after her, she speedily reached a plantation, and eluded 
all pursuit. No trace of her could be discovered ; and the 
next time the shepherd called at Andrew Telfer’s house, my 
lady was seated on the dresser, as demure as if nothing in her 
whole life had ever disturbed her tranquillity.” 

'In The Dog , by Stonehenge, an excellent book, there is a 
wood-cut of Puck, and “Dr. Wm. Brown’s celebrated dog John 
Pym ” is mentioned. Their pedigrees are given — here is Puck’s 
which shows his “ strain ” is of the pure azure blood — “Got by 
John Pym, out of Tib; bred by Purves of Leaderfoot ; sire, Old 
Dandie, the famous dog of old John Stoddart of Selkirk — dam, 
Whin.” How Homeric all this sounds ! I cannot help quoting 
what follows —“Sometimes a Dandie pup of a good strain may 
appear not to be game at an early age ; but he should not be 
parted with on this account, because many of them do not show 
their courage till nearly two years old, and then nothing can 
beat them ; this apparent softness arising, as I suspect, from 


82 


JOHN BROWN 


the simple-hearted — the purloiner of eggs warm 
from the hen — the flutterer of all manner of 

Volscians — the ban- 
dy-legged, dear, 
old, dilapidated 
buffer? I got him 
from my brother, 
and only parted 
with him because 
William’s stock was 
gone. He had to 
the end of life a simplicity which was quite 
touching. One summer day — a dog-day — when 
all dogs found straying were hauled away to 
the police-office, and killed off in twenties with 
strychnine, I met Puck trotting along Princes 
Street with a policeman, a rope round his neck, 
he looking up in the fatal, official, but kindly 
countenance in the most artless and cheerful 
manner, wagging his tail and trotting along. In 
ten minutes he would have been in the next 
world; for I am one of those who believe dogs 
have a next world, and why not ? Puck ended his 
days as the best dog in Roxburghshire. Placide 
quiescas ! 

DICK 

Still lives, and long may he live! As he was 
never born, possibly he may never die ; be it so, 

kindness of heart ” — a suspicion, my dear “Stonehenge,” 
which is true, and shows your own “kindness of heart,” as 
well as sense. 



OUR DOGS 


83 


he will miss 11s when we are gone. I conld say 
much of him, but agree with the lively and ad- 
mirable Dr. Jortin, when, 
in his dedication of his 
Remarks on Ecclesiastical 
History to the then (1752) 

Archbishop of Canterbury, 
he excuses himself for not 
following the modern 
custom of praising his 
Patron, by reminding his 
Grace “that it was a cus- 
tom amongst the ancients, 
not to sacrifice to heroes till 
after sunset I defer my sacrifice till Dick’s sun 
is set. 

I think every family should have a dog ; it is 
like having a perpetual baby ; it is the plaything 
and crony of the whole house. It keeps them all 
young. All unite upon Dick. And then he tells 
no tales, betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no 
troublesome questions, never gets into debt, never 
coming down late for breakfast, or coming in 
by his Chubb too early to bed — is always ready 
for a bit of fun, lies in wait for it, and you may, 
if choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of 
some one else, who would not take it so meekly, 
and, moreover, would certainly not, as he does, 
ask your pardon for being kicked. 

Never put a collar on your dog — it only gets 
him stolen ; give him only one meal a day, and let 



8 4 


JOHN BROWN 


that, as Dame Dorothy, Sir Thomas Browne’s wife, 
would say, be “rayther under.” Wash him once 
a week, and always wash the soap out ; and let him 
be carefully combed and brushed twice a week. 

By the bye, I was wrong in saying that it was 
Burns who said Man is the God of the Dog* — he 
got it from Bacon’s Essay on Atheism, or perhaps, 
more truly, Bacon had it first. 




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